the "Worker" etc. went after them, at once understanding clearly which of the Iskrists needed to be supported from the point of view of the anti-Iskrists. The Bund + swamp etc. politically revealed only the organizational and tactical error of Martov.

Whoever knows all the facts of the Congress and especially the distribution of Iskrist votes (both at the Congress and in the secret organization of "Iskra"), for that person there can be no doubt that there is no turning back. The Iskrists have scattered, and "Iskra" could not possibly exist without the Iskrists. And, I repeat, among the Iskrists Martov was in an absolute minority, and the split in the party (toward which Martov is heading fatally, with each day more and more) will turn out to be a rebellion of the minority, both legally and even more in terms of the actual substance of the matter—an unjustifiable one.

We do not "stigmatize" Martov or anyone else for their error, but we call all of them to work.

As regards the "material means" of which you mention, our affairs are not in good shape now, that is certain, and the California sources[242] have dried up. But, should it be necessary, we shall endure even extreme need, only so as not to allow the many years of work to be broken up out of dissatisfaction with the composition of the centers (for objectively this is all their "dissatisfaction" amounts to).

"Divide up a bucket, is that what you mean?"* — you ask. I could scarcely answer this question, for I make no claims to impartiality in the "dividing up," and you have no need of a biased answer. I am convinced that there are no "fractional parts" at all, but rather a mad attempt to fragment, scatter and shatter the whole (to break up the new hearth by your expression) because of a defeat on one question, in which the defeated Iskrists were utterly wrong.

I shake your hand.

in the hand of N. K. Krupskaya

* Reference is made to material means for "Iskra." Editor's note.

Sent from Geneva to Berlin

First published in 1927

in Lenin Miscellany VI

Printed from a copy written